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Woman convicted in case of stolen Antoinette watch

The widow of a notorious Israeli thief has been convicted of receiving stolen property from a 27-year-
old heist that included more than 100 expensive timepieces and museum artifacts, including what's
been called "the Mona Lisa of the clock world."

By SUE MANNING

Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES

The widow of a notorious Israeli thief has been convicted of receiving stolen property from a 27-year-
old heist that included more than 100 expensive timepieces and museum artifacts, including what's
been called "the Mona Lisa of the clock world."

Nili Shamrat, 64, of Tarzana, was convicted Feb. 23 and sentenced to five years' probation and 300
hours of community service, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced Tuesday.

In 1983, 106 timepieces, paintings and artifacts were taken from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic
Art in Jerusalem. It was hailed as the costliest theft in Israeli history and included a pocket watch
made by famed watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet for French queen Marie Antoinette that
museum officials valued at more than $30 million.

There was a hefty insurance settlement and the case went unsolved for nearly two decades.

Detectives say the theft was committed by Naaman Diller, and he was caught because of his
deathbed confession and will, which left everything to Shamrat after he died in 2004.

Diller and Shamrat met in 1970. They lost contact in 1972 when he went to prison and she came to
the United States to study, but they reunited a few years after the theft and were married in 2003,
said Capt. Randall Richardson of the California Department of Insurance.

Los Angeles lawyer Jeff Rubenstein, who represented Shamrat in the Los Angeles County case, said
his client was "a misguided victim."

"It was her ex-husband's deathbed actions that placed her in this position," Rubenstein said. "Her
accepting responsibility for her small part is hardly the insurance commissioner cracking an
international case."

Shamrat has no comment now and wants to go about her simple, private life, Rubenstein said.

The big break in the case, Richardson said, came in 2006 when an appraiser told the museum he had
been contacted by an attorney about 40 of the stolen clocks.

The attorney wanted $2 million for the clocks - the amount of the reward offered in the case - but
that was negotiated down to $35,000, and the first of the stolen items, including the Antoinette
watch, were returned to the museum. That batch of recovered items also included a Breguet design
from 1819 known as the "Sympathiques" and a clock shaped like a pistol from the same period.

Detectives then followed a paper trail, Richardson said, that led to safe deposit boxes and storage
units in France, the Netherlands and Israel. Some items were found in Shamrat's home when a
search warrant was served there.




"She had all his documents and some of the stolen items, as well as display placards from the
museum," Richardson said.

So far, 96 of the 106 stolen items have been recovered.

Although the stolen clocks had no connection to Islamic culture, they were displayed at the museum
because they originally belonged to Sir David Lionel Salomons, the father of the museum's founder
and the man who became London's first Jewish mayor in 1855.

There was no immediate comment about Shamrat's plea agreement from the museum, which was
closed when the announcement was made.

Diller's notoriety followed a string of bold thefts in the 1960s and '70s. He was renowned in Israel for
daring break-ins and an ability to keep one step ahead of the law. He meticulously researched sites
for hours and used innovative techniques that earned him the admiration of the same people who
were trying to stop him.

Investigators used words like legendary and unique to describe him, and one detective said he was
disappointed they were unable to sit and talk to him about his exploits.

On April 15, 1983, knowing the museum's alarm was broken and the guard was stationed in the
front, Diller used a crowbar to bend the bars on a back window, according to police reports. Behind a
parked truck, he climbed inside with a ladder and was able to slither in and out of the opening
throughout the night. Most of the timepieces were small enough to get through the hole, and if they
weren't, he knew how to take them apart, police said.

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